Thursday, August 29, 2019

TENZI Game and TENZI Card Deck Review


Have you heard of TENZI?  It is a super fun dice game designed for kids 7 and older, so ~ 2nd grade and up.  Speed is everything in this game.


This game comes with 4 sets of 10 different colored dice - red, blue, green and yellow.  How to play - each player is given all 10 of one colored dice, so you can have up to 4 players.  When you start, all the players roll their dice simultaneously until all of their dice are displaying identical numbers.  So, if I roll my dice and I have the most 3's, then I will pick up the dice that don't have 3's and re-roll them in hopes of getting more 3's.  I continue on in this fashion as fast as I can until all of my dice are 3's.  It's a fast paced speed game.  When all the dice match the player yells "TENZI" and is declared the winner!

 B rolling her dice

A playing also

E won this round with 5's.

The kids thought that some of the dice colors were easier to see the numbers on than others so we often played a few rounds and then had everyone switch dice as to not have an unfair advantage.  No one is competitive around here 😉.

 E and D dice battling

If you are not sure what I mean by how you play this game then please watch the short video below to visualize what I'm talking about.



This game is simple, fast and fun!  All my kids enjoy it and it's a game we like to play as a family.  We just need to take turns because there are so many of us.   It also has great purpose when you think about math drillwork and learning about numbers in general.  Worried TENZI sounds to easy?  That's where variations come in like Splitzi for example.  In Splitzi instead of trying to get all ten dice of the same number, you must have five dice of one number and five dice of another number.  Or you can assign a number before beginning the game that everyone has to attain.


Want even more ways to expand how you play TENZI?  Then you will want the TENZI Card Deck which includes 77 new ideas on how to play the game.  There are the regular games,  pattern games, non-speed games, and score-keeping games.  There are even a few blank cards so you can create your own version of TENZI!  We are still thinking about these but I have no doubt that my kids will come up with something unexpected and fun.

Pairzi is another take on the original game.  Be the first to roll five different pairs as fast as you can!

Seventeenzi is an example of a non-speed game.

The first few times we played this game it was hard.  The next few times we played it, it was easy.  It's funny how there is so much chance and luck sometimes in dice rolling games.

Another non-speed game is Sixzi.  In this game everyone rolls their ten dice at the same time.  Any 6's that are rolled are put into the center.  Repeat again and again until a player is out of dice.  That player yells "TENZI" and wins.

D was a little excited to win this one!

You might be wondering what a pattern game is.  In these games you quickly roll your dice to create the nine-dice pattern shown on the card.  After you create the pattern, you take your last die and roll a 6.  First player to finish and yells "TENZI" wins!

C working on a pattern card.

F playing a pattern game as well.

An example of a score-keeping game is the players choose the number of dice rolls it will take to obtain TENZI - 10 rolls, 20 rolls, whatever they think.  Play the game and the player who had the closest guess wins.

These cards are fun and great for educational learning, critical thinking, and they help develop logic and puzzle solving skills.  We highly recommend both the TENZI game and the coordinating card deck.  You are sure to have a lot of family fun!

The TENZI game and card deck can be found within Timberdoodle's 2nd Grade Curriculum Kit.  This would be a great addition to your own homeschool resources and games and also makes a fun and unique gift.

F with his TENZI!

I do want to note that F (age 5) and G (age 3) have no problem playing TENZI and have a blast with everyone else!  They can also do the simpler variations but some of the more complicated variations are too hard for them.


Disclosure:  Huge shout out to Timberdoodle for selecting me as a Timberdoodle Blogger.  Timberdoodle sent my family TENZI and the TENZI Card Deck for a discounted price in exchange for our honest review.  All opinions are my own.

2 comments:

Kristen of A Mom's Quest to Teach said...

I have always thought about getting Tenzi...it was on my wishlist at Timberdoodle. Think about picking it up every time I see it in the store. This looks like something that our kids will enjoy playing in a year or so. Great review.

Kathryn said...

Thanks so much Kirsten! I highly recommend it. Even though it is simple, it is a lot of fun and can be played with a wide age range, which can sometimes be tricky to accommodate. I love all the variations as well.